


Speak Your Truths and I Will Listen

by Idol_pastimes



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22885063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idol_pastimes/pseuds/Idol_pastimes
Summary: Jay's noticed Ben's odd moods.  His disappearances and quick exits over the last few days.  Usually he'd ignore it; let him work things out for himself.  But in the close cold of the night, who else is there to help you but your brother?
Relationships: Callum "Halfway" Highway/Ben Mitchell
Kudos: 57





	Speak Your Truths and I Will Listen

**Author's Note:**

> Started after Friday's awesome ep but only finished minutes prior to today's, this doesn't really fit anymore with canon, but I love Jay's character and wanted to spend a little more time with him. And after their interactions today, it seems all the more fitting to give Jay a little more of the spotlight! The lad is an awesome almost-brother. Hope you can enjoy anyway. :)

He wasn’t sure what had woken him up. Tilting his head and looking over Lo’s shoulder, Jay could just see the bright red numbers on the alarm clock, declaring it to be quarter to one in the morning. He let his head drop back with a thump then grimaced as Lola mumbled something in her sleep. It hadn’t been too long since they’d managed to get a still grizzly Lexi off to bed and Jay was very much aware of where that little girl had inherited her dislike for early nights and early mornings from. He waited and exhaled with no small amount of relief when Lo’s breathing deepened once more.

Still, it was odd that he’d wake up only about forty minutes after they’d fallen into bed. He’d been knackered; splitting his time between the car lot and the funeral parlour over the last few days, if only to keep track of the madness that Stuart and Rainie concocted on an almost hourly basis, had really started to grind him down. When he’d said that he’d been thinking about concentrating on the car lot a bit more, he’d meant _with Ben_ , yet since he’d made the move it’d seemed like his brother was AWOL for hours at a time with no real explanation as to where he’d disappeared off to.

At first, Jay’d laughed it off as shenanigans between Ben and Callum. He couldn’t bring himself to whinge about it; he’d not seen Ben so happy as when he was with Halfway and, most of the time, except for that blip over Christmas, the same was true of Callum too. The pair were gross together and Jay’d heard enough innuendo about Callum’s assets to last him a lifetime, but as much as he’d ribbed Ben for it in the past, he couldn’t be happier for him. _And God only knows, Callum’s a good influence, at last. Anything to pull Ben away from Phil’s overpowering clutches._

Still, it’d been fairly obvious something was amiss with Ben, the more he thought on it. Jay shifted ever-so-slightly, squirming to move his back into a more relaxed position. For some reason, the memory of Ben’s odd request to invest in a shady deal with some of the capital currently tied up in the car lot had him tensing up, and he moved his head around on the pillow to stretch his neck until it cracked.

Now that he was thinking on, he hadn’t seen Callum in a couple of days, either. Jay pressed a hand over his eyes and sighed into the darkness. _Hope they’ve not had a barney and split up. That’s be a sure-fire way to send Ben straight back into the world of dodgy dealings, that would._

He raked his fingernails over his scalp and let his arm fall down to hang over the edge of the bed. The air was cool even with the heating turned up and he pulled the hand back under the covers after about thirty seconds. The curtains waved slightly and Jay tried to remember if he’d pulled the window fully closed earlier. 

There was nearly always a slight draft in these old houses and the single glazing certainly didn’t help when they were trying to keep a sick Lexi from catching a chill on top of her feeling sick. She’d been in bed with them again this morning after a night of whimpering and sweating her way through a low-grade fever and after Lo had taken her off to have a quick sponge-down and to find a clean set of pyjamas, Jay’d opened the windows to try and air the room out a little. The last thing they needed was him or Lola coming down with a childhood ailment; it was expensive enough trying to keep Lexi in dresses and heels at the moment without one of them having to take time off work, too. At least with a change of bedclothes and a bit of fresh air he could convince his mind that he’d be immune.

Jay racked his brain for any trace of a memory that would suggest that he’d actually shut the window at some point during the day. He came up blank. He sighed again and braced himself for the cold air on his bare chest as he levered himself up slowly, trying his hardest to keep the bed still and let Lola sleep on. Lexi being ill was taking its toll on Lo, he knew; she hated seeing her little girl miserable and Ben’s disappearing act wasn’t helping matters either. Jay shook his head as he took the couple of steps to the window, ducking behind the curtains to grab the handle. _Time for another word with that brother of mine_ , he mused. Then, he stopped.

He squinted, pushing his face to the pane before him and forgetting the shivers that were running through him at the close proximity to the glass. 

_Was that Ben out there?_

_What the hell was he doing?_

Jay stared for a couple of seconds longer, his breathing picking up and fogging the glass. He swiped an impatient hand through it, hoping that he’d just imagined the look of utter devastation printed across Ben’s face as he turned aimlessly in the centre of the square. Maybe it was a trick of the light. A dream that he was sleep walking through. Maybe-

‘Callum!’

The stark anguish in the word flashed through Jay and he pulled the window fully shut in pure startled reaction, head snapping round to see if Lola had awoken. Feeling around with his foot, he dragged his discarded jumper from that evening closer to himself, darting his attention between Ben’s bedraggled form and Lola’s even breaths behind him. 

Jay was down the stairs and jamming his feet into his shoes before he’d even contemplated his next move. 

The door clicked shut behind him as he stuffed his bunch of keys into his back pocket. His feet hit the ground outside as he was forcing his right arm through the still balled up sleeve and he shrugged his torso, settling the jumper into some semblance of its correct position. Jay must have walked this path hundreds of times, but never before had it seemed so foreboding. He almost didn’t want to get to Ben; he didn’t want to know what could pull that noise from his brother in the middle of the night. 

Ben hadn’t moved. Hadn’t walked away or stated to smash things. No trace of his usual quick temper and fierce outbursts. That in and of itself was scary.

As he grew close, Jay slowed instinctively. He could see his brother’s eyes clearly now, pressing half-closed with redness and irritation. Ben’s pupils were completely blown and if Jay hadn’t seen him drunk many times in the past, he would have assumed that his brother was just that: drunk, or high, or _something_. 

But this wasn’t right. Drunk Ben was funny, a joker. Drunk Ben picked fights and picked up blokes with equal aggression and abandon. Drunk Ben wasn’t… this.

Jay felt like he was approaching something so delicate, so fragile that he found it hard to speak. He kept his voice down low and raised a hand out to his brother, hoping for some kind of reaction.

‘Ben? Hey, bruv, you’re not looking too hot right now. You wanna come inside? We’ll get you warmed up and see if we can sort this out in the morning, yeah?’

He was shivering, shoulders drawn up around his ears and tight, so tight. In pain or misery, he couldn’t tell. Jay watched as Ben’s eyes tracked round the square once more, and frowned as he saw his brother’s gaze catch on his for a second, then move on again, unflinching. Or at least uncaring.

‘Ben? Are you listening? We need to go inside now, mate. It’s late and-’

Jay’s outstretched palm touched Ben’s sleeve and he drew in an involuntary gasp of air. He was _freezing_. And, and- was he _wet?_ Jay’s mind started to move into overdrive and he found it increasingly hard to slow his breathing back to normal levels. He moved closer still and finally, finally gained a response. Ben’s slow blink and crumpled face breathed out heavily, almost a sob, and his head dropped to hang staring at the ground.

‘I can’t find ‘im. Callum. I can’t find ‘im.’

Jay reached out with both hands, tracing down Ben’s arms, pushing his hair back and trying to see into his brother’s eyes; he had seen this look on MMA fights he’d watched on telly, usually after someone had been kicked in the head. He was checking for cuts, for wounds before he twigged that Ben was speaking strangely. 

Loud.

Jay paused in his frantic triage and raised Ben’s face to look straight at his own, forcing his brother to meet his gaze. 

‘Ben; can you hear me? Have you got your hearing aid in?’

Ben’s eyes drifted off to the side again and Jay knew he was starting to panic. Ben’s face was almost transparent where it wasn’t redded by tears and inflammation. He smelled like dirty water and his entire body was sopping wet; how in the Hell had he ended up here? And where was Callum? They were going to have some serious words if he’d had anything to do with Ben ending up in a state like this, wandering the square, completely vulnerable and alone. Jay knew Ben acted the hard-man, but he’d seen so many bad things, _ugly things,_ in his lifetime that he’d really hoped that Callum could be the end of the stream of unpleasantness his friend seemed to court. If he was the reason for _this_ –

Jay reached in his pocket for his phone and cursed the set of keys he found there. For the first time in a long time, he found himself wishing for Phil Mitchell to turn up, if only to coax Ben into the house. If there was one person he knew Ben would follow, it was his father. _And unfortunately, that would likely never change._

As ever, Jay thought to himself, Phil wasn’t around when his son actually needed him. So, it was up to him. He gently ran fingertips over Ben’s ears, drawing barely a flinch, and pursed his lips at the realisation that Ben was sans hearing aid for whatever reason. The sheer amount of water that had seeped into his friend’s clothing certainly pointed in the direction of a late-night swim, and putting two and two together, Jay twigged; the boat party.

Whatever it was, whatever had happened, it was too late at night for them to be standing in the middle of the square in the freezing cold wind, especially with Ben drenched and him wearing basically bed-clothes. Using the palm of his hand to pull Ben’s gaze back to him once more, Jay pointed to his mouth with his other hand and, enunciating widely and overly slowly, gestured with a head tilt at the empty Mitchell house.

‘Come on, Ben. Let’s go and get you warmed up. Then maybe you can tell me what’s going on.’

Ben’s eyes stared at his brother’s lips intently and he squinted harder, raising a shaking hand to his ear and letting out a moan of inhuman misery. Jay felt sick at the sound, and pressed a hand over Ben’s, shaking his head in response, suddenly desperate to comfort, to _fix this_ , what _this_ was.

‘Hey, hey; you’re alright, Ben. You’re okay, right? We’ll get you fixed up. Just come with me, yeah? Just-’

‘I can’t, I can’t… I need to go; Callum’s missing, Jay an’ it’s my fault; he’s hurt an’ I need to find ‘im before anything else, please, can you help me? Jay? I got no one else, no one; I need to find ‘im, please…’

The exhaustion and desolation wrapped around his words had Jay’s mouth hanging open in stunned silence; Ben was begging, _begging_ him to help him. He had never seen his brother so open, never seen him so _invested_ in another person since-

_Well, if I didn’t know before, I do now. Callum’s his Paul._

The realisation hit hard and should have been so happy, but the secondary wave of recognition sucked the joy from it.

_And he thinks he’s lost him, too._

Jay could see the fear in the face before him, had heard it in the scream of Callum’s name not five minutes earlier. All trace of his cocky, smart, proud brother had been stripped away as he’d let himself, _finally let himself_ become attached to someone again. 

_To fall in love._

Well, this wasn’t going to end the same way. Jay’d make sure of that. Taking a firm hold of Ben’s face, holding his gaze steady and speaking slowly so he could read his lips if he needed to, Jay made a promise he prayed he’d be able to keep.

‘We’ll find him, Ben. I swear, we’ll find him. But you need to come with me and get warmed up, first. And then you need to tell me what in the hell is going on here, alright? You ain’t keeping me in the dark no more, you hear?’ The drifting eyes flicked back up to meet Jay’s and he tensed his biceps a touch, just enough to make Ben’s attention flick back to his mouth again. _Keep his attention, Jay. He’s in a place he can’t afford to go back to right now._ ‘Ben! Do you understand me?’

A slow nod was his only response, but it would do.

‘Right. Now, come on, bruv. Let’s get off this square before we catch our death, yeah? Must be minus ten out here. And why are you so wet, anyway? Actually, don’t bother answering that, you can tell me once you’re inside and drying off. You got a spare hearing aid knocking about anywhere, bruv? ’Cause this is gonna get really old really fast if I have to guess whether you can understand me when we’re about to go off on a Callum-hunt, you know?’

He knew Ben wasn’t catching any of his rambling, but Jay couldn’t bear the drawn out silence. He couldn’t face yet the docile wandering of his usually vivacious and aggravating brother and he certainly couldn’t face the rising panic of where Callum might actually be if Ben had turned up in this state.

He could only hope that a shower, a change of clothes and a power nap would make Ben’s world seem a little less desolate. And finding his spare hearing aid would help too, of course.

_Then, we’ll go out and find Callum. Whatever mischief the pair had found themselves wound up in could wait ‘til morning. Or at least until I can look into Ben’s face and recognise my brother again._

He could hear a mumble behind him, almost as though Ben was testing out his voice, shifting between pitches and noises, low in his throat and wincing every so often. Jay could see he was hurting, could see he was miserable and freezing and lost in some world away from the rest of them. He fished out the keys and pulled Ben to the back door of the house, ushering him inside with a finger on his lips out of sheer instinct. 

He wasn’t even sure why, but the warning to stay quiet seemed mean when talking to a partially hearing impaired individual and he twitched at the frown on Ben’s face. It didn’t matter, he knew. Ben would forgive him for any slight that he made, especially an unintentional one. His brother always did. 

Still, he couldn’t wait for the morning when he could hear that from Ben himself. 

_When it’s morning. It’ll be better, then. Surely. Whatever has happened, whatever all_ this _is. It’ll all be fixable in the morning._

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Four hours later, Jay woke up in an empty house, with Ben’s coat missing from the rack at the bottom of the stairs. 

His teeth bared in a mockery of a grin, he shook his head and pulled the door shut behind him, heading back to Lola’s.

There was no point in trying to find Ben now, he realised. He had no idea what was happening, no idea where he might have gone.

Dragging a tired hand over his face, he huffed an ironic laugh.

He hadn’t even heard Ben leave.

**Author's Note:**

> I've just noticed that all of the fics that I've posted so far have had their italics and emphases stolen away by AO3 formatting... aaaah?! I'm a nugget for uploading with the text set to HTML.
> 
> Apologies if you've read any of my other fics and been completely confused by the fact that they read with seemingly bizarre POV flips between first and third person throughout... 
> 
> I've just figured out how to avoid that with this fic, and will now go back and change the others... what a berk I am! :/


End file.
